Retired from the University of Texas and too old to play soccer anymore. Now, in the twilight of his years, time is spent writing in this blog, hiking and exploring Texas Parks, photography, working out, gardening and tending to the five ponds he built .

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Is it Autumn?

I’m sitting here looking out of the window at my yard which, hard to believe is still very green. Probably because I have spent the entire Spring and Summer, watering by hand, every two days. It takes about one and a half hours to do it right. It is not really a chore as there is a lot of satisfaction from listening to the birds and the running water from the ponds. It also give me a sense of peace and quiet and generally, I find it very relaxing. it also gives me the opportunity to check on all of plants and the ponds in more detail than I do when I just walk around.

It has all of the looks of an Autumn day. The wind is gently blowing and the shadows have that long look that Autumn brings. I know that the calendar said that last Friday, September 23 was the first day of Autumn. Can’t trust those calendars. Either that, or the calendar and the weather are not talking to each other. definitely NOT on the same wavelength. I just looked at the temperature and here just outside of Oak Hill, it is already 102 degrees with more of the same forecast for tomorrow. Darn, just when I thought we were through with this heat it turns right around and comes back again.

I can’t remember the last time it rained. Of course that is no surprise as I can’t remember what I had for breakfast yesterday. I think it was cereal but maybe that was the day before. Or this morning. Anyway, whenever it was, it was a long time ago. I have had one teenie, tiny sprinkling a month ago that didn’t even make the deck wet so that doesn’t count. I have often thought about installing a rain water collection system but as far as I can tell, unless the storage tank is huge and I mean HUGE, then any rain we may have had this year would have long since been used up. This is probably not a good year to base those sort of decisions on.

View towards the road

One thing I have noticed this year is the amount of pond water that is evaporating is very high because of the one hundred plus degree weather and of course coupled with more water requirements from the plants in the ponds. Seems like I am topping up every couple of days. It is always a worrisome time for me, topping up, as I have lost fish because of the chlorine in the water. All of my systems are on timers which I am frequently checking but I have had one timer that went bad on me and the water stayed running for a long time. Mad moments of panic when I remembered and rushed around with Chlorine Inhibitor to fix the problem before the fish started to float.

I have been changing the plants over to Texas Natives some of which have also struggled this year. On my drives around town, I have noticed a lot of dead and dying trees especially of the Oak variety. I have even lost a couple in my yard not to mention the smaller shrubs and trees that have just completely died out in the areas that I have purposely left wild. No wonder the brush fires are so bad because I noticed on my walk through the woods yesterday, the majority of the undergrowth is already dead. I think that the repercussions of this drought will be felt for a long time.

Talking of adding water, it reminded me that I was adding water to one of my ponds so I went out to check and the timer had done its job and had shut off. When I was out there, the heat was almost unbearable. Lucky for me, I have no place that I need to be today and can stay home in the A/C.